The Concept Of Being "God Fearing"

[martin48]

Let’s start with agreeing some definitions

Deism is the belief in a creator, who made the Universe but does not take any personal interest in it -- doesn't require worship, answer prayers, judge behavior, or necessarily promise a life after death Deism is a benign belief, because there are no consequences for accepting or rejecting it.

Theism is the belief in an active, interventionist god who not only created the Universe (maybe, mainly for us), but also requires worship, answers prayers, judges sinners, and may have created a divine son or other entities to live among us. Theists are 100% certain their god(s) exist, and have faith in this without any objective, verifiable evidence. There are many theistic religions, each of which insists it is the only true one.

Athesium is the absence of belief in any gods. It is not a belief system and it is not a religion. Based on the absence of any evidence for the existence of any god(s) where such evidence should be if god(s) did exist, many atheists are 99.9% certain that no god(s) exist. But they may be open to the slight possibility they could be wrong and would be willing to accept the existence of god(s) if convincing objective, verifiable evidence were to appear. Therefore they do not have faith in the nonexistence of god(s). They simply have no belief in any gods.

Agnosticism is a formal uncertainty about the existence or nonexistence of god(s). The agnostic asserts it is impossible to determine existence or nonexistence. Theists sometimes try to tell atheists that because they are not 100% certain god(s) don't exist, they are agnostics. This is not true. An atheist has no belief in god(s). That is not the same as believing it is impossible to tell if god(s) exist or not.

Agreed?

Now, we can continue ...

[trish]

Crowds sing an Anthem at the start of a football game -why?

Many fans ask the question but to no avail.

If I understand correctly this “God of Science” is the Enlightenment vision that led some deists to substitute Nature for the various notions of the Divine. I’m not a defender of Nature’s God, but I do understand that quite a few of the early deists and philosophers whose work influenced the deists (e.g. Locke and Spinoza) were deeply concerned with moral philosophy and conceived the notion of Natural Rights. I think it’s unfair to accuse them of not having a moral compass; especially when the Christian’s of the same period seemed to revel in the notion that God can toss a non-Christian into the pits of Hell to burn forever and ever for the sin of disbelief. It is as you say, “The God of Religion is commanding, and vengeful.”

Finally, and worst of all, is the campaign to force one stream of thought and behaviour upon another, and that I think is where many people take their leave of religion altogether.

You are probably right. It is a theme that the proselytizing New Atheists effectively play upon. It is a note that Nietzsche struck over a century ago when he identified in religion the will of believers to assert their power over the most intimate thoughts and behaviors of others.

Readers of these threads already know that I subscribe to neither the God (or the gods and goddesses) of Science nor to the God (or gods and goddesses) of Religion. We humans are lost and alone in a vast uneasy sea: we have a compass, but no absolute and rock steady platform upon which to place it.

...even though we are all made of the same stuff, and often adhere to the same or a similar set of rituals, we can choose to be different.

Very nicely said; and a very nice post too. Thanks for taking the time to write and share.

[trish]

And thank you Martin for the definitions. I think many people are confused about what it is atheists don't believe. (I wrote my response to Stavros and posted it before I read your post...otherwise I might've incorporated it in my reply).

[buttslinger]

When I think "God fearin' man" I think Gary Cooper riding his mule with his rifle through the pouring rain on a dark Kentucky road, with murder on his mind and blindness in his heart, and then lightning strikes and splits his rifle and kills his mule and he has an Enlightenment of sorts. (Sgt York)

There is a lyric from an old song the Grateful Dead sing at the end of their concerts..."I love you, but Jesus loves you best" (Goodnight)
so to me that's like Martin's breakdown of the various levels of God, how close we are to God. Jesus is a better authority on God than I am, just like Picasso is a better authority on Art than I am, but I can still have my view of God and Art, it's just not as good.
I tried to read a book on Goethe once, it referred to so many other heavy duty religious books and authors of his time, I was completely lost. Religion was much more on the forefront then.
It wasn't until the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire that being gay or kinky became a bad thing, Mastering the seven deadly sins meant denying them, unlike this crew, where the latest sin goes on the weekend "TO DO" list. haw haw haw.
Finally, "The path is the goal" and if you're not interested, then that's that.
Life is Life, an experience, an outlook, a day. If God is a bringdown, then by all means, leave God in the weeds and get back to your life. You can't think outside the box til you know what the box is.
Van Gogh said Jesus was an artist of the flesh. Rather than using paint and canvas to focus on some long forgotten promise most people that claim Enlightenment get there through a pretty heavy duty daily regimen of Meditation. Breath control and yoga exercises, boring repetition. In the Middle East they pray every day. Yawn.

[hippifried]

I don't think I like the term "new athiest". What's new about them? Every bent has its fanatic prosylitizing "wayists". Don't worry. I won't try to psychoanalyze them here. But maybe the wayists should have their own niche in this discussion. Might make it a bit easier to distinguish the catagories we're trying to establish.

Oh... We keep talking & hearing about agnostics, but not gnostics themselves. If memory serves, these are folks who are sure there's some spiritual supreme being, & actlvely seek its nature outside the strictures of dogma. I'll bet most of us know someone who says they're "spiritual but not religious". Another niche?

[trish]

I don't think I like the term "new athiest". What's new about them?

I think they're fireproof; they're not being burned at the stake. I agree the name is a bit irritating to those who have been atheists since before ever hearing of Harris et. al. I think the big difference is they're speaking out and writing best sellers. What decade was the first to have a best seller on atheism? They can easily be accused of proselytizing (as I sometimes do) but one can also object that they are merely and finally pushing back against the influences of religious fundamentalism that constrains our politics and stifles the lives of even non-believers. Besides accusing them of being a bit proselytizing, I also thank them for creating an atmosphere (at least here in the U.S.) that has allowed atheists to come out of the closet...not that we'll have an openly atheistic president, Congressman, Senator or Supreme Court Justice anytime soon.

[Fyusian]

Firstly to Martin:

Agnosticism is a wide spectrum. Not all agnostics think it's impossible to determine the existence or non-existence of a god. You have agnostic-theists who hold a belief in God but are uncertain and agnostic-atheists who hold that there might not be a god but are uncertain so those theists who make those claims aren't exactly wrong. You do also have agnostics who think it's impossible to determine the existence or non-existence of a god too.

Atheism arguably is a belief in some. Not all atheists "hold a disbelief" some are gnostic atheists who are 100% certain there is no god despite there being no empirical evidence supporting this statement, therefore their claim is a belief based on faith and their own perception of the universe (just remember, some see the fine-tuning as argument for God's existence and from a philosophical perceptive, this can be debated).

Theism is different for different people. Some theists are certain God exists, others simply hold a belief that God exists but theism has nothing to do with worship, the following of religious rituals, belief in an after-life or prayer and most theists won't make an arrogant statement saying that they are 100% certain that God exists. This is often seen in many debates, the theist says "I believe in God" whilst the atheist says "there is no god" so which one is claiming 100% absolutely certainty? Not the theist.

Also what's the difference between being 99% certain and 100% certain? The former seems a cop-out for atheists to refuse the categorization of their worldview as a belief or that they are claiming they are absolutely sure.

Don't confuse theism with religion and even theistic religions don't all the share the same attributes in common. The Sadducees were Jews who denied the existence of an afterlife and judgement. In fact there's Christian sects and Progressive Jewish sects today who share beliefs like these still.

Now to Stavros:

I think you've got many things right. Especially the part about human desire for rituals. This is all part of our evolution. Also the point on the hatred for religion is an interesting point, I think that too is what many self-identified atheists object to really rather than the concept of a god.

Among the liberals and LGBT community, this disbelief of God seems to arise from hatred towards religion. Liberals see the bad religion did in the past (and still continues to do) and the LGBT have themselves actively experienced judgements, persecution or discrimination from religion so it's no surprise so many of them hate religion according to the statistics.

This is where the statistics become interesting, lots of those in the LGBT community, at least in the west, identify as atheist or non-religious so they became disbelievers because of what they saw and experienced of religion? Isn't their disbelief then emotional? Perhaps they can't believe in a "pure god" as they get sodomized brutally or suck cock or some nonsense because traditionally, most religions are against such practices and as they're sucking cock they're thinking "no god can exist, I LOVE THIS, COCK IS MY RELIGION!" in an effort to reduce guilt that might be brought on by continued religious belief? But then surely these aren't explicit atheists but anti-theists whose hatred is emotional?

Do some of these people who reject religion really disbelief in a god or just religion's concept of a god? I've debated with some who then turn around and say "well actually I do believe a god could exist but I just hate religion and don't think this [insert religion's deity here] could exist" so then these are anti-theists (which can refer to those who oppose religion but not belief in a god as well as those who oppose belief in a god).

Of course there are those of the LGBT who continue to follow religion, some noting that Jesus himself (the central and fundamentally, the core part of Christianity) never even spoke upon homosexuality being a sin, that notion came from Moses and later Paul. I don't know much Islam to know how the LGBT believers in that community reconcile their faith with their sexuality or lifestyle.

I've noticed many atheists debate against God's existence arguing about the evils of religion etc but few will argue against God's actual existence and seem to think when we're debating about "God" we're talking about the Judeo-Christian concept of God so they rage on about "God" being a "vindictive, bipolar, murderer" blah blah. At this point I have to point out my own god is basically a unknowable god who I believe probably does nothing but watches us (which I guess is deism but I don't deny if God interacts with the universe at all in some subtle way so I would personally label myself as a theist).

Just don't use your hatred of religion to argue against the existence of a god. There's no reason why you can't disbelieve in religion but hold the belief that there is still a god.

I've got nothing against the religious though, so long as they're tolerant, don't commit violence etc then they can have whatever views and beliefs that they want. I believe in freedom of speech and belief. There's a difference between hating gays and simply thinking homosexuality is wrong. I know many disagree or think that these religious people are still bigots but then what do you make of people who say vegetarianism is wrong? These people don't hate vegans, they just think their lifestyle is wrong, same with these type of religious people and therefore I have nothing against them even if I disagree with them.

You know, I've used prostitutes, I've lied, I've stolen and many religious people would condemn my lifestyle and say I'm going to Hell if I don't change my ways but I'm not going to hate them or their religion, they're entitled to those views even if I don't believe in Hell or their version of Hell. Yeah I see the bad of religion, it's caused deaths, discrimination and persecution but I can also see the good where it's caused great acts of charity (in fact the largest charities are still religious) and has been used to argue for tolerance.

People go on and on about religion doing bad things but forget the good. Some atheists think they're freeing the religious from a life from blind faith and delusions but what are they bringing them too? A new life of delusions in the digital age where worship of a supernatural god is replaced with a material god such as a celebrity idol, sport, lifestyle and social networking? This is different from religious devotion how? There are people who worship the likes of Kim Kardashian or refer to their twitter idols for advice on life. Now I don't know about you but I'd rather have someone preaching the words of a wise 2,000 old Jew to me than the words of Jaden Smith...

Even the atheists in this "new atheism" movement are religious in their own right having their own forums, meetups and almost religious devotion to atheist speakers even going as far to use pictures of people like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens on their social networking profiles which they dedicate to spreading the ideals of atheism. There is even symbolism for atheism itself (the A that is inside an atom) that many atheists embrace.

Dawkins knows this religiosity of these atheists (although he refuses to directly remark upon it) which is why he rallies his followers on twitter even giving them instructions, he also is like the religious preachers of America, he has his own site that you can join the "inner circle" (which is aptly named the Dawkins Circle) of by "donating" through either monthly or annual payments and by doing so you get a chance to meet the man himself. So what we have here is a atheist cult of personality built around Richard that everyone but these atheist "Dawkinites" are too blind to see.

At the end of the day, despite what either groups may claim, no one truly knows all there is to know about the universe. The atheists try to champion science and say "see here, there is no god even though we haven't explored all of our own galaxy let alone the universe and beyond to know anything like this, I'm going to make this absolute claim anyway" and then the religious "my scripture is absolutely right and knows the answers to everything" in reality we're all in the same boat of knowing precious little even these so-called scientists are in that boat.

We haven't even got out of our own solar system for God's sake and there's arrogant people saying "there's no god beyond this universe."

So in this regard I think the atheists can be as arrogant as the religious if not more so. If the multiverse exists, then who is say what this means? Current science speculates that there's different dimensions, realms and universes where the laws of physics could be different. This means realms that we could not comprehend exist perhaps alongside beings that we could not comprehend whom would appear supernatural to us. One could even argue our own universe or another could be alive itself and then the argument falls down to not "does a god exist?" but "how do you define a god?" If a god is a creator then for all we know there could be an infinite number of extra-dimensional beings that fit this description. The multiverse says our universe is a bubble in a bigger bubble filled with other bubbles but what if the multiverse itself is just one more bubble in another?

All I can say is we should keep an open mind. If you want to say you disbelieve or believe in a god or gods, fine but when you say "I know for certain" you've got a lot to prove, in fact to "know for certain" you have to be omniscient and therefore God himself.

Oh and another thing, why the hatred and mockery for people like Jesus? You hate his followers (and arguably only the extremists) not him. If you read The Bible, Jesus was himself critical of religion! So it makes it hilarious that I see such hatred towards him from those who hate religion today. Jesus himself criticized the priests of his time as hypocrites, he criticized their traditions and rituals, their love for money as well as their intolerance, he himself refused to obey many of the laws of the Old Testament including the stoning of a woman who committed adultery even though Judaic laws commanded for her death. It's easy to read Jesus in a modern setting attacking the Catholic Church (the modern day Pharisees) and organized religion in the same way once again.

The central teaching of Jesus is this: love your fellow man. This is in fact how he summed up the 10 commandments (along with a love for God).

So if we had Jesus back in today's world, who do you'd think he'd be most critical of? People in the LGBT community or the religious? He might consider homosexuality a sin but like with the adulteress, his real ire would be directed towards the religious hypocrites who judge these people thinking that they themselves are perfect. Jesus recognized asexuality "for there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb" even going as far to praise it (possibly owing to him being asexual himself) so for all we knew he recognized other sexualities as being something nobody can help or at least not something to judge someone on.

I don't believe the future will be without religion and despite some arguments from atheists or secularists, a society without religion isn't any better. We've seen this in communist and socialist states. People will always have their ideologies that they'd be willing to fight and kill for, religious or secular. I think the future lies in unity. Unitarian Universalism has this right, combine all the good beliefs into one and be tolerant towards all. Many people of today's society already have this philosophy, even atheists, the thing about Unitarian Universalism is that it's neither theistic or atheistic, you can be a part of it regardless of your belief in God.

Long ass post I know...

[Caleigh]

ag·nos·tic

1. [agˈnästik]
   
   
   
   NOUN
   
   
   
   
   • a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
     
     
     
     
   
   
   
   
   
   

[hippifried]

Y'all're tryin' to rewrite the dictionary to make it fit your arguments. It's not as complicated as you try to make it. Gnostic means searching for spiritual knowlege. Theist means believing in a god or gods. The prefix "a" simply means not. Atheist (long a, stress 2nd syllable) just means not theist. Agnostic (long a, silent g, stress 2nd syllable) just means not gnostic. I am both atheist & agnostic, & I resent my thought processes being defined using the blather of fanatics who don't know anything either. I'm not confused or unsure what to believe. I just can't buy the ancient tales of some omnicient goblin or that there's any klnd of spiritual knowlege to be had. It's not based in hatred either. So stop with all these lame assumptions & generalizations already. Please.

[trish]

As Hippiefried and others have made clear the suffix “a” means “not” or “without.” One who is not a theist is an atheist. You may say of every atheist, “That person does not believe that such and such a deity exists.” Some atheists may also hold particular beliefs which logically entail their atheism, but the definition doesn’t require it.

Even that latter sort of person may stand upon fairly secure epistemological ground depending on the nature of his or her negative assertion. For example, even though there are infinitely many numbers and no one can list them all, a mathematician can say with confidence that none of them is the largest prime number. Even though we haven’t explored the entire universe, and much of what we wish to know about it remains obscure and beyond our reach, astrophysicists may say with confidence that of all the luminous stars in existence none have a mass smaller than that of Earth’s mass. Such an astrophysicist may acknowledge her knowledge is not absolute, but she might also remind us that the whole notion of absolute knowledge is plagued with paradoxes and ambiguities.

It is not the obscurity of the universe that makes theism problematic, but the obscurity of theism itself. When asked, “Are you a believer?” you establish the question’s context before you answer, right? Are you being asked, “Do you believe in the God of Abraham as espoused in the First Testament?” Or are you being asked, “Do you believe in Thor?” Perhaps the question is, “Do you believe in the Cause without a cause and that uncaused Cause is God?” Or, “Do you believe the Universe Itself is God and We are part of Him?” You may have different assessments of all of these queries.

My answer to all of these questions and many others like them is, “No, I don’t believe that.” As very young child I approached these sorts of questions with wonder and if not belief, a propensity to believe. These days, I approach them without belief. I think it’s only fair then to say I’m an atheist. Do I believe in God? Define God. If it a God I haven’t thought about before, I’ll think about it. Given the record though, the answer to the question will likely be, “No.”